A lifestyle blog of sorts

My Slimming World Journey (so far…)

I was always the ‘skinny’ one at school. I ate whatever I wanted and never seemed to put on weight. I was pretty active, playing hockey several times a week from my mid teens but definitely made up for it with extra meals.

Everything changed when I went away to university (9 years ago, how is it 9 years ago?!?). The combination of nights out drinking, takeaways, eating my catered meals and cooking for myself too, soon caught up with me. I returned home at Christmas a stone heavier, but people said it looked good on me after being so thin before. Then by Easter I had put on another stone, and another again by summer, and the compliments soon stopped coming!

I lost weight in my second year, a combination of moving out of halls and a lot of walking more than a conscious effort. My weight has been up and down ever since!

It wasnt until I moved in with my now husband that I started to make specific changes to try and lose weight. The first thing I tried was the fast metabolism diet, which had great results but was far too restrictive and I soon put the weight back on. I dabbled with 5:2 and calorie counting using my fitness pal, but nothing stuck.

I started a new teaching job in September 2014 and after failing to lose weight over the summer as I’d hoped, I decided that the new school year would be a fresh start for me too. I failed again! The first term was so long and stressful that I just carried on eating badly and hardly exercising.

It wasnt until January 2015 that I persuaded a friend from work to join slimming world with me. I had kind of sneered at slimming groups before, but just ‘being good’ wasn’t working for me and I decided I needed some rules.

The principles of slimming world are really just basic healthy eating, but the rules around ‘syns’ really appealed to me, as chocolate seriously is my downfall. I found slimming word really easy to follow and I was pleased with the results, losing 3.5lbs in my first week and getting slimmer of the week the next.

I lost weight pretty steadily at first, and when my loses started to slow down, I cut back on lots of the processed foods that I didn’t feel great about eating anyway. I started exercising regularly again. For a while I combined a bit of calorie counting and 5:2 when I felt the pressure of the upcoming summer and felt I wasn’t losing fast enough.

The summer holidays came, and although I wasn’t at target I felt healthier and happier in myself, and actually felt slim! I stayed on track for the first few weeks of summer, despite a glamping trip with my family. Then came mine and Tom’s holiday Paris. A couple of days in he proposed! We celebrated with lots of amazing French food and my diet fail carried on from there!

I put on 4.5lbs in Paris and kept having little gains each week after that. It was slow at first, as I was ‘kind of on plan’ most of the time, but little by little the weight crept on.

We booked our wedding for the following summer and even that didn’t seem to provide enough motivation to get back on track. I’d lose some weeks and gain the next, and my weight slowly crept up, despite throwing in a few lean in 15 weeks too! Being ill with one things and other from February to Easter really didn’t help (teacher perks!).

When it came to our wedding day I was a whole stone heavier than our engagement trip to Paris! Our honeymoon in California added more lbs and the first stressful few weeks of the new term added the rest. I’m now officially back to where I started – my heaviest weight ever. I feel huge and unhealthy, I’m uncomfortable and my clothes don’t fit. Oh and I have a massive moon face too.

I’m determined not to give up though, no matter how many times I have to start over. This week I have made the decision to quit slimming world. This may seem counter productive but I’ve worked out that I’ve nearly spent £500 to be exactly where I started!

I still enjoy the plan and will continue to follow it from home. I think I need to stick to one ‘diet’ and not try to include the principles of lots of different things. I’m going to weigh myself each Friday morning, and post my results on my slimming world Instagram page (@synfullyslimming) to keep myself motivated. The £5 I would spend at group I’m going to put in a jar to pay for some lovely new clothes when I reach target.